Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships [Hardcover]

James W. Tamm (Author), Ronald J. Luyet (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 14, 2004

Collaborative skills have never been more important. At work, you can't afford to be defensive, hostile, or even too cynical. It's never easy, but getting along with your colleagues or customers is imperative, whether you're on a long-term assignment, a temporary project, or a virtual team where you're connected to colleagues only by cell phone and e-mail.

Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships is a how-to manual for anyone who wants to be more skillful at building relationships, both professional and personal. James W. Tamm and Ronald J. Luyet will show you how to gently look inside yourself for the answers, with page after page of thoughtful exercises and probing tools that will increase your skills. The four introspective skills you will learn are: Collaborative Intention, Truthfulness, Self-Accountability, and Self-Awareness and Awareness of Others.

You also have to get what you need from the world around you. That's why Radical Collaboration teaches a critical fifth skill: Problem Solving and Negotiating. Tamm and Luyet teach you how to negotiate using the highly effective interest-based approach to problem solving.

At the heart of the book is a theory of human relationships called Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation, or FIRO. It explains how unmet emotional needs can sabotage our efforts to collaborate.

How does the online profile work? When you get to chapter 7, you will be directed to a unique code number printed on a sticker on the inside back flap of this book. Take this number to the Web site for the book, www.radicalcollaboration.com. Here, you will be able to take a free relationship profile called the FIRO Element B. This profile will increase your awareness of how you behave in relationships and give you information about your behavior in three areas that strongly influences your ability to collaborate. The test will measure how important control is to you, how important it is for you to be included, and how comfortable you are being open about yourself.

Are you are defensive and fearful? Is that preventing you from collaborating? Use the exercises in this book to identify your habits, and then learn how to moderate them. You will quickly become more effective at work and at home.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James W. Tamm is a former judge and an expert on dispute resolution and building collaborative relationships. He is currently managing director of the international consulting firm Business Consultants Network, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness (December 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006074250X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060742508
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #390,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skills needed to succeed in collaborations, February 3, 2005

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships (Hardcover)

The main theme of this book is a series of arguments that we should conduct our business dealings more like interpersonal rather than adversarial relationships. In our interpersonal relations, we tend to damp down our disagreements, as we never know what will happen in the future. We rarely burn our interpersonal bridges, for the person that you cheat, call a name or make an obscene gesture to may be the one who interviews you for a job sometime in the future.
Most of us have taken a course in basic business, and the first thing you are told is to write and sign a contract. This is of course true, but it also overstates the value of a written contract relative to other aspects of the relationship. While a contract documents the responsibilities and expectations of both parties, there is a great deal of flexibility, even when they are lengthy and rigid. Furthermore, this principle says nothing about how to earn the trust needed to get someone to agree to a contract or how to negotiate a viable contract.
There are four introspective skills that the authors put forward to help you learn how to have more of a collaborative mindset. They are:

*) Collaborative intention.
*) Truthfulness.
*) Self-accountability.
*) Self-awareness and awareness of others.

Each of these skills is necessary for a successful collaboration. You first must want to collaborate and be honest with yourself and others regarding what you want and what you are willing to do. After that, you must follow through, making sure that you are holding up your end of the bargain. Finally, you must honestly appraise your performance and also be aware of how you perceive others and how they perceive you. There are many exercises that will allow you to honestly examine how well you perform in collaborative efforts.
The heart of the book is a theory called Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO) and is based on unmet emotional needs. We are all human beings and we take our emotions with us wherever we go and into whatever we do. This test is offered for free on the companion website, and you can obtain a personal relationship profile. It will help you determine if you are willing to give up enough control over events so that you can have effective collaborative relationships.
It is our ego and emotions that sustain us in life, motivating us to succeed and strive to do better. No company is an island; everyone must work with others to get what they want. This book will show you how to submerge the aspects of your ego and emotions that can poison your collaborative well and I strongly recommend that everyone in business read it.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book on Negotiation, December 17, 2004

By 

R. Anderson (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships (Hardcover)

More than just a "how to" book on negotiation, Radical Collaboration helps you understand yourself and your response to conflict. Backed by relevant theory and many examples, it provides practical exercises to help you "unhook" your hot buttons and build your confidence for handling difficult negotiations. A must for anyone interested in conflict resolution, negotiation skills, or self development.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HELPFUL, June 6, 2006

By 

Lori Hoeck - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships (Paperback)

Discovering the nature of defensiveness and "button pushing" was invaluable for me personally and for being able to now see it in others. I just loved Chapt. 2: "Hey, Buzz Off ... I Am Not Defensive!"

Quoting:

"Defensiveness is a poison pill to good relationships. In conflict, defensiveness is like blood in the water to a shark. A little here, a little there, and in no time the situation has degenerated into a feeding frenzy."

"Defensiveness is always based on fear."

"Defensiveness does not defend us from others. It arises to protect from experiencing our own uncomfortable feelings. The prescription for dealing with your own defensiveness is to let yourself experience those feelings. Do not avoid them."

"Defensiveness provides only temporary relief. It's like covering dog poop with whipped cream. It may look good and smell better for a short time, but it doesn't deal with the underlying issue or clean up the mess."

"If you think of your childhood as an eighteen-year-long hypnotic induction, you'll get a better idea of how behaviors that were helpful to us as children may have taken on a life of their own and my not be helpful to us as adults."

"Defensiveness distorts our reality, causing us to spend more energy on self-preservation that on problem solving."

This was great, too:

"The difference between a small annoyance and a button is like the difference between Teflon and Velcro. It is slips off you like Teflon, it is not a button getting pushed. If, however, the incident sticks in your throat, heart or gut like Velcro, then you've probably got some unresolved fears or pain that is a button waiting to be triggered."

The authors say that when buttons get pushed, people typically get dumber, rather than smarter. "By our informal calculations, there is about a twenty-point drop in IQ."

Because of this book, now when I feel my anger rising from what someone else is saying, I tell myself, "Hey, is this defensiveness? If so, am I going to let myself get dumber or try instead to see why the button pushing is making me react poorly?"